So in your calendar there are no miracles, no resurrections, no ascensions into heaven? Just honest physics?

It's said that Baha'u'llah (as were any of the Manifestations) was capable of, and perhaps did perform, miracles. However, miracles are seen as having little objective value, as they do nothing for anybody outside the people who directly witnessed them.

Resurrections are understood to be metaphorical, not literally, of the fleshy body. Of what use would the body be to a soul that has already moved on? So, for example, the "reserrection" of Christ meant that after a period of doubt, fear and dispair after His execution, His Disciples were quickened by His spirit and teachings, and arose to spread the Gospel.

"Ascension into heaven," same concept. "Heaven" being a state of being, or nearness to God -- not a literal, physical place, that somebody flies up in the sky to get to.

Then somebody should tell that to the ones who do believe in bodies coming back to life and flying up into the sky to get to Heaven.

Trust me...there are more people on this earth that believe that than you can shake a stick at.

It baffles me, really.

Peace

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It's not baffling. It's merely tradition.

People sometimes have trouble breaking from tradition.

In my religion, the metaphor is sometimes used of a mirror reflecting or manifesting the light of the sun, so to speak.

I think there's a passage that speaks of the "dust of aquired knowledge" sometimes obscuring the mirror.

I get your point, and maybe it's different for those of us coming from a theistic perspecitve first. And perhaps I'm getting hung up on semantics and labels, but to me when someone says "atheist appreciation," it implies a contrast to "theist appreciation." If humanity never invented the concept of gods, there wouldn't be the term, atheism.

There wouldn't be the term atheism, but the many challenges of intelligent social living would have to be solved in a non-magical way.

J'CarlinIf the shoe doesn't fit, don't cram your foot in it and complain.

Morality is simply the label we give to our collective sense of right and wrong that has developed by necessity through evolution. Those that had the instinct to protect and care for their children passed those instincts along because their children were cared for and had more children. Those with no instincts to care for their children had no legacy, because their children had much lower survival and procreation rates. The instincts that led to survival resulted in survivors with those instincts. It's really very simple, and requires no gods nor any other external morality-giver. That we have excess cerebellum and over-think "morality" in inconsequential; behaviors and instincts that promote a species' survival are passed along, and are understood to be "good."

This needed to rescued from the garbage thread as it is one of the best discussions of how morality follows from atheism. Well done, cptspith!

J'CarlinIf the shoe doesn't fit, don't cram your foot in it and complain.

That's only if the person who happens to be an atheist bothers to think about any of these things.

That's right. While going through my day, thoughts about a god are just not part of it. Not excluded or avoided, just not part of it.

Dave - Just a Man in the Mountains.

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge. Isaac Asimov

I would also add that what follows for me being an atheist is the lack of a belief in a god or gods.

THAT'S IT!

Despite common stereotypes, atheists are not neccessarily ant-religious, nor do the "worship" themselves instead of a god. Also atheists don't "hate god"-it is impossible to hate something if you don't believe it exists.

Atheism indicates what someone does not believe, but it says nothing about what one does believe.

For that other terms like scientific naturalists, philosophical naturalist, secular humanist or even Pastafarian can connote the rejection of religion while also defining the substance of an individual's personal philosophy or worldview.

In addition what follows for me in being an atheist is that I am Secular.

On paper "secular" simply means that something dosen't have anything to to with religion-it does not mean opposition to religion. But when we talk about "secularism" as a social movement, we're talking about working to keep faith-based ideas,superstition,and religious ideology out of public life. This does not neccessarily mean evangelizing for atheism, but it does mean reocoginizing that people's rights are best protected, government is most fair and policy is best formed when religion and myth are not in the picture.

Instead, secularist want a public policy best on facts, science and reason.

A person can be religious and still believe that secularism is the most fair andequal approach to government because it guarantees religious freedoms for all, favoring no one religion of another-or over non-belief.

What follows for me being an atheist and a secularist is being a secular humanist.

Secular humanism for me is a non-religous worldview rooted in scienific naturalism, naturalist philosophy and humanist ethics. Secular humanist promote universal values, such as integrity, benevolence, fairness, and responsibilty, and we believe that with reason, an open marketplace of ideas, good will and tolerance, progress can be made towards building a better world for ourselves and futrure generations.

What also follows for me in being an atheist is Freethought.

Freethought is a way of thinking an problem solving that is free from appeals to tradition, authority or dogma. Freethinkers base their opinions on facts, evidence and reason. Modern free thought traces back to the Enlightment and most often refers to people who are not religious because there is insufficent evidence to support religious or supernatural claims. Some of history's greatest reformers were freethinkiners-Thomas Paine, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Margret Sanger and A. Phillip Randolph because freethought allows people ti be free froom the limiting effects of traditions that typically regard conformity and compliaince as more important than free expression and free inguiry.

What also follows for me being an Atheist, Secularist,and Freethinker is being a Skeptic.

Skepticism is a provisional approach to claims. It is the application of reason to any and all ideas — no sacred cows allowed. In other words, skepticism is a method, not a position. Ideally, skeptics do not go into an investigation closed to the possibility that a phenomenon might be real or that a claim might be true. When we say we are “skeptical,” we mean that we must see compelling evidence before we believe.

What also follows for me has an atheist is to put very little "faith" in "faith".

So far as I can see the difference between "faith" and "BLIND faith" is a distinction with little if any signifanct difference. It is the difference between being blind and blinder.

People who are intuitive thinkers are more likely to be religious, but getting them to think analytically even in subtle ways decreases the strength of their belief, according to a new study in Science.